Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!iconsys!caeco!i-core!geo-works!bryan
From: bryan@geo-works.UUCP (Bryan Ford)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: RISC coprocessor for Amiga?
Message-ID: <0957.AA0957@geo-works>
Date: 18 Jun 89 20:42:21 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga
Lines: 28

I was just wondering something.  Would a coprocessor board using one of the
new RISC chips (Intel 860, Motorola 88000, AMD 29000, whatnot) be feasible
for the Amiga?  I'm thinking in terms of fast ray-tracing.

I was just looking through the Am29000 user's manual (which they sent me
for FREE, along with all kinds of other good stuff...now that's what I call
support!), and it definitely looks fast!  The other two mentioned above are
supposed to give about the same performance - about 36,000 Dhrystones.  Of
course, for ray-tracing, floating-point would be used more than simple
integer calculations, but considering the Amiga 2500 can do a max of about
5000 Dhrystones with special compilation and a priority of 100, it looks
nice.

So what thinks y'all?  If it would be a good idea, maybe we should start
'persuading' the hardware dudes to make something like this.  Of course,
this would probably be quite expensive, but if you're doing lots of
ray-tracing, it might be worth it.

Anyway, just a little thought that crossed my mind...

				Bryan

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